rape

Abron Scott, Amos Robinson Charged in Barbara Grams Murder 37 Years After Robert DuBoise Wrongfully Convicted

admin cold case, Florida, murder, rape, Tampa 0 Comments August 5, 2022

, 2022-08-05 12:38:26,

After 19-year-old Barbara Grams was raped and murdered in August 1983 while walking home from her job at a Florida shopping mall, cops quickly rounded up a local man named Robert DuBoise.

DuBoise, who was 18 at the time, was fingered to detectives by a local resident who told them that he “caused problems” in the Tampa neighborhood. Under questioning by law enforcement, DuBoise agreed to let investigators take a dental mold to compare to a bite mark found on Grams’ cheek.

A forensic odontologist declared it a match, and, based on the bite mark evidence—a field which has since been debunked as junk science—as well as testimony from a jailhouse informant in exchange for their own plea deal, DuBoise was convicted and sentenced to death.

DuBoise swore he was innocent, to no avail. He spent 37 years behind bars before DNA evidence cleared him of any involvement. In August 2020, he walked out of prison, a free man. But that meant Grams’ real killer, or killers, were still out there.

On Thursday afternoon, nearly 39 years to the day since Grams was killed, Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren, who had been hastily suspended that morning by Gov. Ron DeSantis over a political spat, announced that detectives had, at long last, zeroed in on the actual suspects.

“For 37 years, Barbara Grams’ family had false closure based on a false story,” Warren said at a news conference.

Warren identified Grams’ actual alleged killers as Abron Scott, 57, and Amos Robinson, 59, who he said “will finally face a reckoning for what they’ve done.” The two, who are both serving life sentences for another murder in Pinellas County, were hit on Thursday with first-degree murder charges in Grams’ death.

They were connected to Grams’ killing after further analysis of DNA evidence stored in a rape kit from 1983, according to Warren, saying that the new testing provided fresh clues that conclusively prove Scott and Robinson’s guilt.

DuBoise’s lawyer, Innocence Project senior staff attorney Susan Friedman, told The Daily Beast on Friday that Warren’s decision in 2018 to form a unit focused on past cases was crucial in righting the grotesque wrong that had been perpetrated against her client. Friedman said she and her colleagues only learned in 2020 that relevant biological evidence even existed in the case, thanks to Warren.

“Mr. DuBoise’s conviction demonstrates how tunnel vision, faulty forensics and jailhouse informants all contribute to…

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DNA

Victim of Brittanee Drexel’s alleged killer recalls abduction

admin murders, myrtle beach, news, rape, rochester, South Carolina 0 Comments May 23, 2022

, 2022-05-23 13:43:00,

One of the victims of a career sex offender who was busted in the murder of missing upstate New York teen Brittanee Drexel described how she feared her life when he abducted her in 1983.

Raymond Moody kidnapped Kerri Harding, now 48, from a playground in Vallejo, California, then assaulted and abused her over several hours inside his car, the US Sun reported.

“I for sure thought he was going to kill me,” Harding told the news outlet after Moody was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the death of Drexel, 17, of Rochester.

“I feel like had I not managed to persuade him to let me out of his car to go to the bathroom, I never would’ve made it out alive,” Harding told the US Sun in an emotional interview.

She described how the man accosted her when she was 8 years old and warned her not to walk across a parking lot at her school “because they’re working on the fence.”

She ignored him because she had been warned not to speak with strangers and continued walking — but then realized he had been telling the truth about the work.

Raymond Moody was convicted of kidnapping and raping seven girls under the age of 14, including Kerri Harding, and sentenced to 42 years, but was released in 2004.

South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division

But after she turned back, he unlocked his car door and whisked her inside.

“Everything happened in the blink of an eye. He had me in his car and had driven away within seconds,” Harding told the outlet, describing how he held her head down as he drove.

The terrified girl asked the sicko where he was taking her.

Kerri Harding. — In 1983, Kerri Harding was kidnapped, assaulted and abused by Raymond Moody over several hours inside his car.

“‘You’re…

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DNA

Re-testing of DNA helps crack 17-year-old case of Durham woman’s rape, assault :: WRAL.com

admin assault, cold case, crime, dna, rape, sexual assault 0 Comments April 14, 2022

By Sarah Krueger, WRAL Durham reporter

Durham, N.C. — Durham Police have made an arrest in a 17-year-old cold case, in which a woman was raped and beaten in her home.

Investigators said they have been combing through thousands of old sexual assault case files. During that process, investigator Winston Hunt said he noticed something that caught his attention. Hunt said he chased it down and that is why there is now an arrest.

Hunt is one of two Durham investigator devoted to solving sexual assault cases that have gone cold.

“It means a lot. I know it’s a big responsibility,” he said. “It feels really good to know that, as a team, we can come together to really solve stuff that is solvable.”

In 2020, Hunt said he was going through files from a 2005 rape case where a man broke into the home of an elderly woman on Gary Street, beat and sexually assaulted her. Hunt said the woman was home alone and getting ready to go to sleep. As soon as she laid down, Hunt said the woman head a noise coming from outside her bedroom, so she went to investigate.

“He attacked her, pushed her on the bed, beat her with an object, duct taped her [and] was looking through items in her home, looking for money, things like that,” said Hunt. “Then, when I guess he couldn’t find enough things, that’s when he proceeded to sexually assault her.”

“Sometimes, it can be hard to read things like that,” he said. “It really just strengthens the resolve to try to do everything you can.”

At the time of the crime, the only option was to run DNA through a state database. While going through the case file, Hunt said he recognized the DNA should be re-tested with newer technology available.

“It didn’t seem like a big thing I was doing,” said Hunt. “I had no idea it was eventually going to lead to this.”

In 2022, the new DNA test came back with a match: Timothy Rorie, 58, was already in the system from a 2008 charge. In February, Rorie was charged with first-degree rape, burglary and kidnapping for the 2005 assault.

Rorie remains at Durham County Jail with a $750,000 bond.

Hunt said while he’s grateful, he knows there is still a lot of work to do.

“When you go and talk to the victims and their families and see how it has affected them for so long, it really helps bring into perspective the good that’s coming from re-investigating and re-looking at cases and doing everything that you can to bring closure,” he said.

The survivor in this case is now in her 80s.

“Being able to bring closure to somebody who went through something so horrific is a good feeling,” said Hunt.

Hunt said he has spoken with her and her family and the trauma continues to affect her. But Hunt said the family is very glad to hear about the arrest.

“It means a lot for her. It means a lot for her family as well. She has a strong family group. For them, as a whole, to know the case wasn’t forgotten, and we did what we can and to get some closure for them has been really good for the family as a whole.”

DNA

A man was linked to a series of brutal sexual assaults in the 1980s by DNA on a utility bill. He was just sentenced to 650 years in prison.

admin dna, indiana, rape 0 Comments April 4, 2022

A man linked to a series of sexual assaults in central Indiana more than 30 years ago by his DNA on an envelope for a utility bill payment was sentenced Friday to 650 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Steven Ray Hessler, 59, of Greensburg, was convicted March 3 of 19 felony charges for crimes against 10 victims between 1982 and 1985.

Steven Ray Hessler

Shelby County Prosecutor Brad Landwerlen

The charges included two counts of rape, six counts of unlawful deviate conduct and three counts of criminal deviate conduct and one count of robbery.

Investigators said Hessler, masked and armed, would break into homes in the middle of the night and would rape, bind and sexually torture his victims. He eluded authorities by wiping down the crime scenes and stealing items he had touched.

Shelby County Prosecutor Brad Landwerlen said that Hessler also struck a male victim with a gun, sending the man into a coma for months. The victim “for years now has been confined to a wheelchair,” Landwerlen said.

The prosecution was made more difficult, Landwerlen said, because a previous task force had arrested and charged another local man with the first few attacks in 1983. In an odd turn of events, that man turned out to be Hessler’s cousin, he said.

The case received a break in 2020 when a detective asked prosecutors if they would pay for samples to be sent to a company that uses the same sort of DNA testing that resulted in the capture of the Golden State Killer. Testing narrowed down the case to Hessler, linked to a DNA sample left at one scene. DNA from the utility bill envelope matched it.

Authroties executed a search warrant at Hessler’s home in the early morning hours on August 17, 2020, and “hit upon a gold mine,” Landwerlen said. Investigators found photographs stolen from one victim, and computers which showed that he had been tracking down four other victims.

“Steven Ray Hessler is one of the most evil, dangerous, sadistic predators that I’ve had the pleasure of prosecuting in my 30+ year career,” Landwerlen said. “He derived great pleasure from his unnecessarily brutal methods of terrorizing and sexually torturing his victims. I promised the victims early-on that my goal would be that he go to prison the rest of his life, and all involved are very happy that we have achieved that goal.”

Defense attorney Bryan Cook in closing arguments said, “It’s a hot mess of a case the state has.”

DNA

Maricopa County receives $3 million in federal funding to help solve crimes | Arizona

admin crime, criminal law, law, police, rape 0 Comments February 5, 2022

(The Center Square) – The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO) announced that it would receive about $3 million in grants from the Department of Justice to help victims of crime.

One grant the office will receive will help the office in investigations where DNA is used to find perpetrators in cold cases where it cannot find the offender. Another grant will pertain to the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (often referred to as SAKI). It allows law enforcement to process rape kits quicker.

The DNA cold case grant will give MCAO more than $500,000 to pay for more DNA testing, create a countywide database of cold cases, hire a data analyst, and increase the resources available for prosecutors who specialize in cold case homicide investigations.

“This is the first time our office has been awarded this grant. Our goal is to increase the number of successful prosecutions of cold cases throughout our county and provide closure to the victims of violent crimes,” County Attorney Allister Adel said in a press release.

Meanwhile, the SAKI grant will be worth about $2.5 million. It will fund ongoing testing of sexual assault kits necessary to be submitted to further DNA testing. It will also provide funding to train law enforcement agencies in the area. And it will allow the attorney’s office to hire more detectives and crime analysts to assist law enforcement with investigating sexual assault crimes.

“These resources enable us to continue doing the work that we’ve been doing by assisting agencies that may not have the manpower or a specialized unit to investigate these crimes and will allow us to continue providing financial resources to ensure test are processed responsibly and in a timely manner,” Adel said.

The funding comes from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. It’s part of the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs.

DNA

Maricopa County receives $3 million in federal funding to help solve crimes |

admin crime, criminal law, grant, law, maricopa county attorney, police, rape 0 Comments February 4, 2022